What Today's Tech Elite Were Doing in 1973

In 1973, the year social computing began on PLATO, the PLATO system got the perfect storm of apps that would forever change the use of the system: PLATO Notes (message forums), Talk-o-matic (chat rooms), and TERM-talk (instant messaging).

What were some of today's tech luminaries doing in 1973? Let's have a look:

Claim to Fame

Name

Age in 1973

What They Were Doing

Apple

Steve Jobs

18

Dropped out of freshman year at Reed College in Oregon; stuck around for a while auditing classes in calligraphy. Later returns to Silicon Valley, winds up working at Atari.

Graduated from Lakeside High School in Seattle, WA; worked as congressional page at the U.S. House of Representatives; enrolled in Harvard University in the fall.

Microsoft

Steve Ballmer

17

Graduated from Detroit Country Day School in Beverly Hills, MI; enrolled in Harvard University.

Lotus Notes, Groove, Microsoft

Ray Ozzie

18

Graduated from Maine South High School in Park Ridge, IL; enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Started using PLATO the following year.

At the conference next week, Ray Ozzie will be on hand among many other PLATO folks to share their insights and experiences. Two other notable speakers are Dave Woolley, who wrote PLATO Notes when he was 17, and Kim Mast, who wrote Personal Notes (PLATO's email system) in early 1974 when he was 18. Doug Brown, author of Talk-o-matic, will be attending the conference. Among the panel sessions is one devoted to the topic of the emergence of online community -- and essentially the birth of social media -- on PLATO in 1973-74. Not to miss.